Editing Spirit world (section)

= Places =


The Spirit World encompasses both the Spirit Lands and the Halls of the Dead. Like the underlying belief systems, the areas are distinct, but wanderers have found areas which are common to both. 

 
== The River of Dreams ==


The River of Dreams flows throughout the spirit world, including the spirit lands and the halls of the dead. Most travelers see the river as a clear blue or green, but some are known to see it glitter in unusual colors like red or black.
 
The River of Dreams is wide and said to impossible to cross without a bridge. But the bridges are guarded by an powerful spirit animal or ancestral who challenges the traveler to single combat.  Should the traveler win the combat, he can resume his journey with increased caution. 
 
More often, the traveller will fall into the river and begins to drift, drifting through wildly spinning dreams which flow from his past and also from his future. Fighting against the power of the current is difficult. If the mortal is unable to escape from the river, he will drift ever-faster as other streams join to swell the river. Each stream brings more dreams, and eventually becomes senseless, wrapped in his dreams and memories of all the people who have ever lived or are yet to be. 
 
But there are experienced travelers also enter the stream of dreams consciously, because drifting in the current allows them to step into myriad times and places. The mortal who masters the gates of time and place lets the stream carry himself to the common dream of all mankind, before struggling his way back to the beach. On the beach, the mortal will meet his spirit guide, who guides the mortal along a secret path into an alien time, place, and body. If a mortal fails, he will drift to the wrong time and place, and probably land in the midst of trouble.

  
== The Labyrinth ==


Hidden in the spirit world, in its darkest and hardest approach, is the Labyrinth. The exact shape of the labyrinth is unique to each individual, but it is always a gloomy and rambling place that threatens the traveler with countless traps, delusions, and dangers. Its walls are carved with patterns that bring to life the dreamer’s unconscious fears and the daydreams he has not dared to confess to himself.
 
The labyrinth is populated by ‘shadows’ and ‘beasts’ which are both reflections of the traveller. Shadows have no physical form, but they carry with them a trait or side of mortal character that the wanderer has rejected in his life. They thirst for the character's vitality and try to absorb it completely. If the shadow succeeds it will overwhelm the character's mind so that as the character wakes up after a rite of sleep, the shadow will continue the character's life. The mortal may play his character normally, but this encounter has, in some way, irreversibly taken a step forward in the direction he once despised or hated.
 
Beasts, on the other hand, do have a form - they look like a cross between the traveler and an animal. Their aim is also to crush the will of the wanderer. If they succeed, the wanderer will lose the light of his mind for at least some time and sink into madness. In the midst of madness, the wanderer usually imagines himself to be a complete animal and acts purely under the animal instincts. The mortal mind is permanently shaken, and the traveller will be subject to intermittent bursts of madness for the rest of his life.

 
== The Gap ==


In the middle of the Labyrinth is the Gap. It's a black wound on the surface of the spirit world, a dark tear that continues downwards to an abyss. There is nothing in the Gap; it is the opposite of all living and being, it is eternal and endless emptiness. The last challenge for the strongest spirit wanderers is to dive into the Gap and succeed in the impossibility of maintaining one's own self.
 
Having thrown himself into the Gap, the traveller will relive his entire life in short flashes, in which he has to make the choices he has made in his own life once again. However, every situation you experience is different from the traveler's past and the memories are surreal anyway (people can be huge, houses and animals threatening, and so on). During these experiences, the traveler either reaches a deeper understanding of his core being, which allows him to rise to a new level of being as a great spirit, or his self will break down into fragments that spread around him into all things living.
 
The traveller has to understand something new in the world and at the same time be able to give up his old life and its beloved things to survive.

  
== The Forest of Oblivion ==


In the Forest of Oblivion, the trees seem human-like but familiar, and the atmosphere is so very calm and soothing that the trees appear to invite the traveler to hike the numerous trails. 
 
Once a traveller enters the forest, his mind will slowly start to blend in with the forest so that they can no longer remember who they are or where they came from. Such questions matter little to them, for this forest is eternal and ultimately it is all that matters. Those who are lost in the forest of oblivion are eventually told to become new trees in the forest. While being in the forest, many stray travelers can be encountered, and some of those who were able to flee also swear that they have encountered the forest itself.
 
As someone who has been lost to the Forest of Oblivion returns from his spiritual journey, his memory is completely wiped out such that he cannot remember his own name. It is said that the spirit traveler could restore their memory by returning to the spirit world, traveling to the forest of oblivion, and helping the lost self return to and clear out from the forest.